[stuki]

One threat that is getting bigger in the Bay Area, is the ever increased concentration and dependence on start ups. Most of whom are not living of anything remotely resembling cash flow.

The tech eco system itself is one thing, and largely populated by people who can afford a bit of a hit. But nowadays, everything is priced and organized around ever more millionaires being minted in tech every day, and the spending these generate. Take even some of that away, say by making money less artificially cheap, and there is potential for plenty of pain and dislocation across the area.

Much like Finance in NYC, the tech boom/bubble is driving costs so high in the Bay Area, that the only remaining jobs are either in tech, or jobs providing highly paid, localized and personalized services to tech workers able to afford paying thousands to have their toenails clipped, lips kissed and walls decorated with Van Goghs. Leaving those providing the latter, highly vulnerable to any slowdown in the increasingly monocultural spigot from which almost all funds here now flow.

[dccoolgai]

Yeah, in a way it's not all that different from Midwestern towns like Gary, Indiana and Youngstown, Ohio - booming economies that depended on steel. Once the steel went away...